Vampires Don't Sparkle
by Halfcent
Summary: Josef, Mick Josef is unhappy with his current choice in fiction. Warning: Twilight lovers might not enjoy this one!


Vampires Don't Sparkle

"Mick, get over here", was all Josef said before the line went dead.

Mick's blood went cold as he held the silent phone, frozen for a moment in panic at the urgency in his friend's voice. The paralysis lasted only a moment before an urgency of his own set in. He had to get to Josef's. Something was wrong.

Setting speed records he rarely risked delivered Mick to Josef's driveway in record time. His own sense of self-preservation clamored for him to go slowly, take the time to sense danger as he moved through Josef's home, but he could not shake the tone of Josef's voice repeating its self in his head and that spurred Mick to rush headlong until he found Josef. Heedless of any danger that might be lurking or waiting, Mick into a room on the second floor to find Josef pacing in agitation.

"Josef?" Mick ventured as he stepped forward. His steps as Josef spun to look at him and came to a stand still. The older vampire's fangs were showing and his eyes embers of rage.

"I have a job for you, Mick", Josef rasped, closing his eyes to forcibly calm himself to his usual cool demeanor. Mick waited patiently. A few moments later, successful, Josef's cooler gaze pierced Mick's again as he reopened his eyes. "I have a job for you," Josef repeated. "Damage control".

"Okay...?" Mick answered hesitantly. He did not think Josef was in a frame of mind to be refused, but Mick was careful to make no promises. Josef's ideas of appropriate damage control and his own were usually fields apart. "What sort of damage control?"

"Murder, Mick", Josef growled. "Revenge and murder." Josef had successfully hidden his vampire but his anger had not abated and it was evident in his set jaw tense posture, in his continuous pacing. He stopped only long enough to pin Mick with his eyes when he spoke.

"Josef," Mick began in exasperation. "You know I'm not the one to call for that."

"Oh, you will," Josef stated confidently.

"I'm not your hired assassin, Josef."

"You have no problem taking care of those you deem bad, Mick. This one is right up your alley. Or better yet...bring her to me."

Mick hesitated. What Josef said was true but it was not as simple as that. However, he had never seen his friend in quite such a state as this; perhaps he could at least hear what he had to say.

"No promises, Josef. Okay? But I'm willing to hear you out. Who is this person?"

"Meyer. Her name is Meyer. Stephenie Meyer."

"Okay?" The invitation to continue was clear in the single word.

"She's an author."

"Okay. So what has this author named Stephenie Meyer done to piss you off so bad?"

"She wrote a book."

Mick blinked. "A book."

Josef simply snarled.

"About you?"

To Mick's surprise, Josef snorted inelegantly, a sound that was at odds with his murderous rage. "Hardly," Josef sneered.

"A book about what, then?" Mick pressed. He was beginning to lose patience with Josef's current mood and the theatrics going along with it.

"Vampires."

Mick blinked again, this time in surprise. "She knows about vampires? Is she a freshie who talked? Someone who saw something?"

"No. She doesn't know vampires are real. Her books are fiction."

"Josef...you've lost me."

"Mick. We are gods. We have thrown off the human coil..." Here Josef glanced at Mick "...well, most of us." Mick glared but Josef ignored it and continued. "We are beyond the restrictions of mere mortals, Mick. And this woman...this woman...she has painted us with indignity, she has given today's generation of blathering teenagers and fangirls a warped idea of the true vampire. I could barely get through the rubbish!"

"If you hated it so bad why did you read book?"

"The whole series," Josef informed Mick factually. "I read the series. And it doesn't matter why," Josef insisted when Mick snickered. "I was drawn in by the warped myths she was pushing down the throats of the newest generation."

"We are not killing the woman, Josef," Mick stated with humor.

Josef held up one of the books...the spine titled with Twilight...and Josef held it up almost as an offering to Mick, something mournful in his eyes. "Emo. That's what vampires are to her, Mick, and now that is what we are to all the people gobbling up her books. We are nothing but emos with tortured souls!"

Mick refrained from reminding the other vampire that that was the case with many of them. Perhaps Ms. Meyer did know some real vampires after all.

"Josef. We cannot kill her. If you don't like her books, don't read them," Mick said reasonably.

"Mick. She made us rock hard. I mean don't get me wrong, I like to think I'm tight, I enjoy looking good. But Mick, she made vampires literally rock hard. As in cold and hard. Statue-like cold and hard. What if future freshies start reading this drivel and it changes their minds? We'll starve to death!"

Mick shook his head with a small smile. Josef was really going beyond reasonable with this, but he was fairly certain that even as upset as his friend was, Josef would not truly consider ending the author's life over a fictional series.

"Josef," Mick began, but was cut off.

"Sparkly, Mick. She made us sparkly."

"What?" Mick asked, startled.

Josef nodded, satisfied that he now had Mick on board.

"Yes, Mick. She made vampires sparkle. We sparkle now."

Mick paused, thinking, then stood up with a sigh. Josef was right. There was only one thing to be done.

"Okay, Josef. Where does this woman live?"

Vampires don't sparkle.


End file.
